[quote=281508:@Dave S]What is needed is not “more beta testers”, but “more beta testers with the time, resources and knowledge to apply appropriate use cases, and document the results in a comprehensive manner”
The beta tester list, should not be open to “just Pro customers”, many of us are “professionals”, but do not need to spend the extra for things we don’t have a use for. The list of Beta testers should be vetted (don’t ask me how, or by whom), but if you are on the list, and don’t make contributions, then you should be removed. If you are on the list, and the reports you submit indicate a lack of understanding that exceeds the requirements to test properly, you should be removed. You should not be “on the list”, because you paid more for the product than the next person.[/quote]
You basically described the alpha users list which is not open to all, is by invitation only and may include anyone we see fit to include (or remove)
At the end of the day the problem is quality control. Just submitting a ticket does not mean it will be caught or fixed in time. If this was an open source project then Michel could take the RTF classes that were working and create a new build of Xojo that meets his need. Alas he cannot and thus ultimately responsibility falls on to Xojo.
I don’t know if the beta program can ever offset internal quality control because the incentives simply aren’t there. Its a resource for them but not an outsourced QA department. Whether they release once a year or 24 times a year it does not change the fact that testing is hard, boring, and time consuming. How many of you want to work on bugs 24/7?
We actually get more paid-user demand for more releases, not fewer. We also fix far more bugs in a cycle than regressions that are introduced. Does that necessarily mean Release X is the best for everyone? Of course not. That’s why we make back collection of releases available to our customers. But having new features and fixes available often is key.
It won’t ever be perfect, but we do our best to fix cases as quickly as we can after they are filed- like we did with this one that this thread is about.
I for one have been pleased with the response time to the bugs I’ve reported, especially lately. My “show-stoppers” and sometimes just inconveniences have been addressed very quickly during the beta cycle.
Like @Kem Tekinay, I’m generally pretty happy with how quickly the bugs I personally report are dealt with. However, I take the time to be as verbose as possible in my reports - I’ll produce sample projects, record screencasts of the bugs in action, etc. Making reports easy to follow / reproduce the problem you are seeing is always going to make it easier for Xojo (cough Norm cough) to fix. Lower barriers all around, I say.
[quote=281506:@Norman Palardy]There’s a point at which more ? better
And IMHO probably already there since our alpha + beta list is already very large
And we recently did just expand it so all beta users also get access to what used to be called "alphas’
Thats happened for the last few releases
From my perspective I haven’t noticed more reports than usual
“Better” reports is subjective[/quote]
To say that Xojo has a large list of alpha and beta testers is laughable. This community is microscopic as a whole compared to most others. More needs to be done to attract users to increase the base and make contributions. I hope the mindset changes one day so this platform can reach the potential that I see.
Programming for a company does not always make it possible to test every release. Our boss pays our bills and therefore we work for him and do tests if and when time allows. We did not run into this problem (with RTF and Textsizes) with our program because we use custom controls we made ourselves to display/edit text and therefore never saw the problem.
For us usually the bugs we encounter tend to be around Postgresql use (the functionality we use does not give us any problems at the moment) and user interface. We try to report the bug if we can find a way to make it reproducible. It’s not always easy to make something reproducible and we see little point in saying that something does not work for for us sometimes. I don’t think that’s a bug report that would be helpful to Xojo engineers. If we can reproduce it, we do report it. If there is already a feedback report, we add our own comments to it. We have been able to get several bugs fixed by doing this.
That being said, we’ve been using Xojo professionally for years now and we’ve always been able to keep programming, and yes, sometimes that means we stay with a slightly older version for a while. We also do some testing with beta’s but are not always in a position to test it thoroughly enough to move our code base to a new version. We are currently using 2015 r4.1 because we haven’t found time to test all functionality in the newer ones yet.
Another thing to remember is that sometimes you don’t encounter a bug because you implemented a workaround in your code. I’m pretty sure we have some workarounds in our code for bugs that have been fixed by Xojo since then. It’s difficult to always find these things after the fact.
I have the feeling it’s time now to get focused on windows for the next release. For running windows-projects you just can’t get beyond 2015r4.1 at the moment.
[quote=281513:@Norman Palardy]There’s many cases where the rapid model made it possible to respond to changes
Its not all bad[/quote]
On the other hand, if one release a year, how many times will you waste to read the release notes ?
Seriously, I believe in the four releases / a year model.
[quote=284116:@Patrick Morel]Same for ListBox control
Just change Units to Pixels, then to Point again :-)[/quote]
Have you tried this in 2016r2.1 where the original bug was fixed?
About Listbox (2015 R2), maybe not related :
I noticed than By default, the Units setting “Point” is not valid. I mean it is noted “Point”, but font size is not calculted in points … until you change settings from “point” to anything else (“Pixels” or “Inch” or “millimeter”), then back to “points” and then it is OK.
A small bug of IDE, not serious … when you’re aware of it
I have not tried in textArea, I guess it might possibly be the same
[quote=281590:@Emile Schwarz]On the other hand, if one release a year, how many times will you waste to read the release notes ?
Seriously, I believe in the four releases / a year model.[/quote]
Sigh.
Nobody is arguing against four releases. I’m talking about ONE major VERSION, and then however many bug fix releases. One every month if you want.
That way you end up with stable production-ready releases, not a collection of releases where you have to check which one you can use for your project.
Nobody is arguing against four releases. I’m talking about ONE major VERSION, and then however many bug fix releases. One every month if you want.
That way you end up with stable production-ready releases, not a collection of releases where you have to check which one you can use for your project.[/quote]
Unfortunately, the new stuff you’d want in a major release doesn’t always get finished at the same time of year, so we could have all this stuff waiting around to be released and that’s not good for you or us.
In a way, we do get a major release a year. It is a matter of deciding which one. not unlike wine, there are good years and less interesting ones. I often mentioned how I liked 2007. Today I enjoy using 2016R2.1 for Mac, and stuck to 2015R4.1 for Windows.
Markus, I don’t say I agree with the way it is. I admire your passion on this, but I don’t think most people share it. Maybe, it will change for the better (or maybe not).
?